The Analog mechanical keyboard for precise movement in Games

€135,786

pledged of €30,000 goal

885

backers

Why Crowdfunding?

We’ve made the design, hardware and an alpha version of the firmware. We've got a manufacturer ready for production, already invested in the tooling, prototypes, development and still have a boatload of passion for what we do. All we’re missing is your support to finalize the firmware and make it happen.

This is our invitation to you, to join Wooting as a founder of analog keyboards and together we can change the industry.

Available in both ANSI/ISO layout

The difference between ISO and ANSI

We will support the following languages:

US QWERTY (ANSI)

UK QWERTY (ISO)

Spanish QWERTY (ISO)

German/Austria QWERTZ (ISO)

French AZERTY (ISO)

Swedish/Finnish QWERTY (ISO)

Danish QWERTY (ISO)

Norwegian QWERTY (ISO)

Portuguese QWERTY (ISO)

Swiss QWERTZ (ISO)

Belgium AZERTY (ISO)

Estonian QWERTY (ISO)

Language layout surveyed after the Kickstarter.

Your layout not in here? Let us know!

Unplug your controller, you don’t need it anymore, now you have the Wooting one for all your analog movement in PC games.

It can read exactly how far down you’ve pressed a key for analog input. You can immediately use it in games to precisely control all your movement or use it outside of gaming for other applications. It's analog!

The Wooting one isn’t only a full analog keyboard, it’s also an awesome mechanical keyboard with (literally) lighting fast input, swappable switches and top-plate, full on-board programmability and so much more.

Be a pioneer in keyboard technology, help us to further develop all the analog possibilities and bring some real innovation to PC gaming peripherals.

Analog keyboard in Games

Action Games

Take full control of your in-game character. Control your movement speed. Walk over small edges in full control. Dodge projectiles in style. Make quick peeks without exposing yourself to enemy fire. Strafe just a bit slower for that extra accuracy. Sneak up on your enemy for a surprise attack. Or just stop making jerk-movements around the NPC you're trying to follow.

Racing games

Take full control of the gas throttle and steering wheel. Control your speed for those sharp turn without key tapping like a maniac. Make fine steering adjustments during those drifts. Or use your full control to finally drive as a well-behaved citizen in GTA… if that’s possible.

MOBA games

Bind multiple key actuation over a single keystroke and gain that advantage over your enemies or just make life easier. For example: See you casting range during press down (Q) and cast a spell on bottom-out (SHIFT+Q).

No complicated software or emulators required

The Wooting one works without installing any additional software because it uses existing drivers to communicate with your computer and games.

If you want more control, we recommend downloading our configuration software (read more further down) that can adjust all the settings on the onboard keyboard memory and update it to the latest firmware.

Quickly swap between Digital and Analog mode.

You can switch between digital and analog mode with the special mode key.

Analog mode will activate all the unique features for gaming.

Digital mode will make it work as an extremely fast regular mechanical keyboard.

Analog input dimension

Regular keyboards send a digital input, either a key is ON or it's OFF. Analog input, however, isn't that black-white. It can sense a range of input from a minimum of 0% up to 100% maximum.

It's is an entirely new input dimension for mechanical keyboards and It's not just limited to gaming. It can also be used for other applications or purposes.

For example, you can customize the actuation point of each key or bind multiple key actuation on a single keystroke.

But that's just scratching the surface.

To really get the most out of analog input, we are building everything as accessible as possible so that anybody can start using Analog input to their own advantage and share it with others. More at our Wooting Quest...

The Wooting one

The Flaretech optical switch

The Wooting one features the all-new Flaretech optical switch. It’s modular, fast as light and lasts 100,000,000 clicks.

At the moment, there are two variations:

We recommend the Flaretech Red switch for an optimal analog gaming experience, but the choice is yours!

Upgradable switches

The Flaretech switch reading distance starts at 2mm. With your support of the Wooting one, Flaretech is able to further develop the (dummy) switch for an even longer range. An easy upgrade at any moment you choose, because all the brains are on the hardware (PCBA) inside the keyboard, you only need to swap the switch.

Full RGB colors

Customize the backlit key clusters to your favorite RGB colors, play around with different lighting options or get visual feedback on your analog input.

Full RGB 16 million colors, programmable in 4 clusters

W,A,S,D

CapsLock

Pause, Prnt Scrn, Mode - Ins, Home, Pg Up - Del, End, Pg Dn.

Rest of the keyboard

Swappable = Modular

Create your own Flaretech switch layout, customize the top plate or swap out the keycaps for another MX-stem compatible keycaps. The Wooting one is the most modular keyboard on the market.

MX-keycap compatible switches

Pulling switches

Create your own switch layout

Detachable braided micro-USB

Who doesn’t love braided cables? If you don’t, then you can unplug it for your own Micro-USB cable. Don’t sweat the size, the unique cable gutter can hold any cable.

N-Key Rollover

We use an extremely smart controller, circuity, and switches that works at the speed of light. NKRO is child's play.

Less than of maximum 1MS input lag

The Wooting one has near zero input lag but USB doesn’t allow us to go any faster.

Media & Light keys

All the function buttons within easy right-hand reach, because the left is too busy on the WASD. If you don’t like finger acrobats with the FN key, then you can toggle it on/off with the special Toggle function.

When you press FN+Mode then all the function buttons become accessible without pressing the FN key.

The Mode key

When you press the Mode key it will switch between Digital or Analog mode.

Analog mode will activate all the unique features for gaming.

Digital mode will make it work as an extremely fast regular mechanical keyboard.

Feature proof

The Wooting one firmware inside the keyboard is updateable through USB, so we can occasionally update your Wooting one with a bit more awesome-sauce.

Building configuration software

To get even more control over the Wooting one we’re building software to configure the preferences saved on the Wooting one and to send occasional keyboard firmware updates all on your PC.

The configuration software (GUI) is not necessary for using the Wooting one but does give you access to all the keyboard settings for configurability.

The Wooting configuration software will feature:

Easily upgrade the Wooting one keyboard firmware with the latest features

Create multiple gaming profiles for different games

Share gaming profiles with others

Easy RGB configuration controls for each of your profiles

Map your own analog control preferences

Tweak the analog sensing to your preferences

Create custom macro keys

Change the keyboard actuation point

Create multiple actions on a single keystroke.

Through the development progress and your feedback, these features will ever-so increase with continued support from us.

How does this trickery work?

Through reflecting light within the Flaretech switch, the Wooting one can read the distance and translate this to an analog input. Therefore, we don’t have to interfere with the mechanical keyboard experience with weird pressure mechanics or the sorts.

We've implemented this analog technique throughout the entire keyboard by using an extremely fast microchip and smart circuitry. We can read all the analog signals simultaneous and faster than USB can send it to the PC.

Keyboard firmware is the key

Reading the analog signal is merely the first step, the real challenge is using it on the PC. We’ve made an elaborative blog about it but here is what it boils down to:

The Wooting one can be recognized as a regular Keyboard, Gamepad with Directinput and Xinput controller (Xbox controller).

Any game that supports either Directinput (Gamepad) or Xinput (Xbox controller) will also support analog control with the Wooting one.

You'll be familiar with the basic idea of the technique when you’ve used a Xinput/gamepad emulator on the PC before but a big difference is that the Wooting one isn't an emulator but an actual native Gamepad/Xinput/Keyboard device.

WootingKB recognized as a gamepad

Because it's natively recognized as a gamepad, Xinput controller, and Keyboard; You don’t need any software, game directory changes or fiddling around. Just plug in the Wooting one and start playing.

However, to get all the benefit and more control out of the Wooting one, we recommend installing our configuration software that allows you to configure all the keyboard settings to your own preferences, including the analog sensing.

Example of Xinput buttons mapped on the Wooting one

This also allows you to map all (and multiple) Xinput buttons wherever you want on the keyboard. So you have total freedom.

Since this is the beginning of analog keyboard and we’re doing something extremely new, there’s unsurprisingly a limitation.

Not every game is compatible yet.

Analog movement is only supported in games that support either gamepad and/or Xinput (Xbox controller).

Unfortunately, some game developers that have implemented Xinput in their game, also decided to turn off the Keyboard & Mouse when Xinput is detected in the game and visa verse.

This means that there are some games out there that won’t work properly with analog movement and you’ll just have to stick with an extremely fast mechanical keyboard and mouse controls in that particular game.

We’re continuously working on new solutions and are dedicated to making analog keyboards an industry standard. With your support, we can create a unified voice and build further support for analog keyboards.

The Wooting Quest

It’s our main quest to make analog keyboards the new industry standard. This is how we’re planning to achieve it:

Build more support, improve and smoothen for the current solution, working with existing interfaces (Keyboard, Xinput, Gamepads).

Start the development of an open-source solution that allows you to gain full access to keyboard's analog input for your third-party creations.

Build an easy to customize API for people with less coding or no coding knowledge to build their own elaborative Analog functions.

Encourage and support creative freedom, open source sharing and welcome other keyboard manufacturers to start making analog keyboards for an industry standard.

Wait... but why?

PC gamers have always been known for pushing the hardware limits and constantly seeking innovation that would improve the gaming experience.

But why are we still using digital input keyboards as our main gaming device while console gaming uses analog Input for years now.

That's what we wanted to change. We wanted a Real gaming keyboard that had an actual impact in games.

Meet the Team

We are three Dutch guys that know each other from a long history of gaming. Our passion for gaming never changed but our lives did. Until our mutual dissatisfaction with the gaming status quo brought us back together again.

We like to openly communicate and actively involve you in our development, ideas and business. Feel free to hit us with an email at social@wooting.nl, send a message on Facebook or DM us on Twitter.

Risks and challenges

If you know us from before Kickstarter, then you will also know that we always communicate with honesty and transparency. We've also got a track record of answering 99% of our emails, messages, and random questions. 1% being the ones we've missed. Thereby, we want to give you confidence in what we're doing and if something does go wrong, you'll be the first to know and we'll always find a solution.

We have already figured out all the manufacturing, invested in tooling for mass production, made several prototypes and personally invested a great deal, hence the low goal.

The first challenge we face is finishing the firmware within our deadlines. We've already made an alpha version that works but it's not user-friendly yet and we still have to build the configuration software (GUI). This is where most of your contribution goes into.

The second challenges we face is dealing with the distribution and shipping of all the goods. We've already found a fulfillment partner, figured out the shipping costs and how we're going to do it but it's the first time we attempt anything in this scale.